Solex for Solo

[Jubalr]

Looks like $19.99

Very nice. Well worth supporting what he has been doing for Solo.

 

[mudbeast66]

I bought the upgrade last night. This app just went EPIC!!!!!!

 

[Shawn Mehlert]

Was messing around with missions before flying and noticed one difference that tower had that I really liked. The ability to set the altitude on the ROI… That would then adjust the gimbal of the solo. Just my $0.02. Great job!

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

For everyone's reference, with the tower app vs Solex now...

Tower was created by 3DR many years ago, originally for the DIY UAS world. 3DR kept it updated with features and functions back then. They also built in compatibility with the Solo. However, as we all know, 3DR is no longer in that business. So 3DR will not be making any new updates or changes to Tower. What it is today is what it will forever be. They did open up the code and release their rights to it, which was nice of them. The folks that built it (former 3DR employees) are still active in the ArduPilot world, but they do not have the time to keep developing and upgrading the app for free in their spare time. So it could grow and change. But in reality it is very unlikely. I would absolutely say with confidence it never will change from what it is today. It works, it does a nice job, but it's not changing. And some day changes to Android will probably render it dead.

So, Kelly has taken on the job and integrated it into his app. Now the function of mobile mission planning can grow and change again! Again, all the work that goes into is not free. It is a LOT of work. So it is absolutely worth the cost. We've all seen what @Kelly Schrock can do when he gets an idea in his head with Solex. So I think we're going to see amazing things with mission planning!

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Was messing around with missions before flying and noticed one difference that tower had that I really liked. The ability to set the altitude on the ROI… That would then adjust the gimbal of the solo. Just my $0.02. Great job!

Ya I just messaged Kelly about that. It definitely needs to be added. The ability is already there in ArduPilot. He left it out because the current version of DroneKit he's using doesn't accept an altitude for ROI. So setting it would be meaningless today. This is a problem with DroneKit, which Kelly can't control. He expects the newer version will have it so coming soon.

 

[Dmitry]

Will be in the new version Survey or Spline Survey?

 

[pyrate]

Folks need to buy this and support Kelly, this is quickly becoming the only app you will ever need

 

[coolhand]

Folks need to buy this and support Kelly, this is quickly becoming the only app you will ever need

Agreed!

 

[SteveReno]

I think i was the first to buy it. LOL

 

[pyrate]

And don't forget the ardupilot guys, throw them a few bucks when you can.
some damn awesome work going on over there to get it ready for the solo master merge
P2P deserves the purple heart kudos for sacrificing his solos for the cause.
He needs to put up a fund me page, I would send him a few bucks

 

[cryhavoc38]

Looks like $19.99

Not bad. If the solo package that I just posted for sale doesn't sell, then I am definitely going to buy the Missions add on.
Probably after the new feature undergoes a revision or two though

 

[davemh]

Flew two test missions in Solex last night all worked well except for the master speed setting for the mission. Commented to Kelly on FB about the speed concerns and he replied right away (awesome) and has made minor changes in "Missions" speed settings! It is so refreshing to have someone of his caliber and expertise working on Solex. Thanks again Kelly.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

And don't forget the ardupilot guys, throw them a few bucks when you can. Some damn awesome work going on over there to get it ready for the solo master merge.
P2P deserves the purple heart kudos for sacrificing his solos for the cause. He needs to put up a fund me page, I would send him a few bucks.

Thanks! Let's just say it's good thing this $1200 drone is now only a $300 drone with a Best Buy around the corner. The GoPro that got destroyed in Sunday's wreck hurts more than the drone at this point. But my Green Cube arrives tomorrow, so I sincerely hope this was the last smoking hole in the ground I'll be creating.

 

[Kelly Schrock]

Ya I just messaged Kelly about that. It definitely needs to be added. The ability is already there in ArduPilot. He left it out because the current version of DroneKit he's using doesn't accept an altitude for ROI. So setting it would be meaningless today. This is a problem with DroneKit, which Kelly can't control. He expects the newer version will have it so coming soon.

Well, I actually can control it, I just hadn't gotten around to changing it yet. I did some work on it yesterday, and changed my version of Dronekit so it takes a LatLongAlt and makes use of the altitude in it when setting a guided point. Previously, it was defaulting the altitude to a "constrained" value, which works out to a minimum of 3 meters for copter, 15 meters for plane, and so on. In combination with the apparent behavioral change in the FC for guided points, this is what appears to be causing the sharp descent when flying to a guided point. It most likely wouldn't hit the ground because of the constrained altitude, but it doesn't exactly fly level in Guided mode. I'll give that a test at some point this week and make sure it doesn't break anything with the current Solo firmware. If it looks good, I'll ship it out with the next update so it can be tested with master.

As for ROIs, I think I'll just need to add an "altitude" attribute to them in Solex and make it adjustable (default would be 0).

 

[Bilge]

P2P,

"Smoking hole in the ground"....great sense of humor.......love it......

 

[erwabo]

So....what are the chances of having this app automatically downloading flight logs to your tablet or if you have a connected tablet, automatically updating logs to cloud storage provider or a web services for logs...like 3dr used to have

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Technology barrier wise, it is absolutely possible. The logs are on the companion computer. Any application, whether phone/tablet or PC can reach in and download them. That would be a very useful function to add to Kelly's long list of requests!

 

[erwabo]

Yeah they used to have that droneshare.com based on their SDK from the drone kit. I think that was similar to the DJI cloud. DJI has a GREAT setup for flight logging, its all fully automated and then a site like dronelogbook is syced to your DJI clouds so you get all your flights and telemetry data automatically. Im having to fire up the SOLO, using MP or Win SCP to get the logs then having to manually upload and analyze them...so while it works, would be nice to have some sort of automation in terms of having the logs automatically extracted from the SOLO in the 60 seconds or so following your flight or in real time during your flight.

Interesting anomaly...when im using MP or even SidePilot to download logs....the Gimbal is tilting on its x-axis over and over as long as there is a log download happening

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Interesting anomaly...when im using MP or even SidePilot to download logs....the Gimbal is tilting on its x-axis over and over as long as there is a log download happening

I'm not familiar with SidePilot. Is it downloading the DF logs straight from the pixhawk over Mavlink like Mission Planner does? That log download is probably getting in the way of the mavlink communication with the gimbal. Just spitballing. When you take it off the companion computer, the pixhawk is out of the picture.

 

[erwabo]

I'm not familiar with SidePilot. Is it downloading the DF logs straight from the pixhawk over Mavlink like Mission Planner does? That log download is probably getting in the way of the mavlink communication with the gimbal. Just spitballing. When you take it off the companion computer, the pixhawk is out of the picture.

Yes it does it the same way MP does it. MP creates the .tlog automatically if its connected prior to take off, so if I use my laptop I have the .tlog, but it still writes it to the solo as well. I don't want to take my LT with me every time though and Tower didn't seem to create a local log, but I may not have known where to look. I haven't purchased Solex yet, how does it handle logs. I need a Go Pro Hero 4 Black first...I only have a 3 Silver and with that, I cant control the start and stop recording because it has version 3.0 on it. You need 2.0 or less and I cant find that for the 3 Silver, only the 3 silver Plus and Go Pro pretty much told me to pound sand.